Frozen In Time: Kern County, CA

This is quite possibly the most uninteresting picture I have ever taken. Please allow me to explain the significance.

I took this picture in Santa Nella, a truck stop town at the junction of Interstate 5 and CA-152 in Merced County. As you can see, I had 270,979 miles on my car at the time I took this picture. Three hours earlier, near the town of Taft in Kern County, my car had 270,979 miles on the odometer. As I sit here tonight, typing this one week later, my car still has 270,979 miles on the odometer. Clearly, I have found the automotive fountain of youth. Clearly, I will become rich and famous once I tell the world of my discovery.

Clearly, I am lying.

Unfortunately for my pocketbook, the speedometer cable, which leads to the transmission, snapped somewhere on the Golden State Freeway. Ever since then, the speedometer, odometer, and trip meter have been motionless. This was a rather auspicious way to begin my latest trip to the Bay Area, what with an(other) ultimately superfluous yet integral piece of my car breaking.

Maybe I’ll fix it at some point. I mean, I probably should, as it’s nice to know how fast I’m going at any given time. It’s also good to know how many miles I’ve driven on a trip, if for no other reason than to shake my head and wonder why I drove [X] miles for [X] object/food/destination/whatever. This also kills the running gimmick of my About section. But for now, I’m standing steady at 270,979 miles at 0 mph.